


Grief

by NoblehouseofTargaryen (Captain_Shep)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 03:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3555071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Shep/pseuds/NoblehouseofTargaryen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair meets Cousland for the first time, and immediately notices her grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief

Alistair tries hard to joke with her, grinning crookedly after the mage has walked away. He hasn’t really looked her in the eyes, merely scanning across her flaming red hair and thin nose, plump lips and long corded muscle covered in leathers.

“That’s the wonderful thing about the blight though, how it brings people… together.” He pauses slightly, his golden orbs finally coming to rest on her bright blue ones. His stomach drops down further, his heart hammering as his blood runs cold.

He’d never seen such a look of despair on anyone before.

Alistair thinks back to all of his dealings with soldiers, with fellow Grey Wardens, scanning through their faces, trying to find a similar expression, but he comes up with a blank every time. Duncan had warned him about the new recruit, that she was a Teryns daughter, and that her family was no more.

He hadn’t truly known what Duncan had meant when he’d said her family was no more until now.

Her skin is deathly pale, stretched thin against striking cheekbones, her eyes are duller than they should have been, red and sunken in with dark circles brimming around them. Her nails are bitten down to stubs, some crusted with blood from where she’d bitten too hard to quell their shaking.

What had made his heart sink was the grief stricken way she held herself, curled in with drooped shoulders, trying to ward off human contact with every deep shuddering breath she took. She didn’t meet people’s eyes, most likely to save them from the black hole of emptiness they’d taken on.

He stuttered slightly, trying to form words as her eyes flicked away from him, giving him a respite from the pain and grief in her eyes. “Lets go find Duncan then shall we?” He asked cautiously, trying to prod her into finding another purpose, to try to take her mind off of what seemed to be a very painful and traumatic experience, running away from Highever and leaving the shattered memories and battered bodies of her family behind.

She nods imperceptivity, before slowly setting off behind him, her feet dragging with every step. He cracks jokes the whole way there, delighting in the small smiles that he manages to draw from her every so often.

He vows then that no matter what happens he’ll see her grin one day, see happiness return to her eyes


End file.
